Doctors call for ban on antibiotics in livestock feed (with video)

Ontario doctors have recommended a ban on the use of antibiotics in livestock feed as a way of reducing the rate of antibiotic-resistant diseases in humans. Harold Wagner said it's not a bad idea but that it would make meat more expensive. One of his cows is pictured Wed. March 20, 2013, at his Lakeshore, Ont. farm. (DAN JANISSE/The Windsor Star)

Keeping drug-resistant diseases at bay could cost you more in the supermarket’s meat aisle.

Farmers in Windsor and Essex County say a recommendation by the Ontario Medical Association to ban the use of antibiotics in livestock feed could very well help prevent super-bugs from developing in humans, but it would probably mean higher meat and poultry prices.

“There’s no perfect way to do it,” said Shawn Morris, a small-scale beef cattle farmer in Comber who does not use antibiotics in his cattle’s feed.

The OMA released a report on Wednesday calling for tighter rules governing the use of antibiotics in humans and food animals to curb the rise of antibiotic resistant diseases such as certain strains of pneumonia or salmonella.

Food animals such as beef, chicken and pigs can develop drug-resistant strains of diseases through long-term exposure to antibiotics added to their food to prevent any diseases and make them grow bigger. Some of these animal diseases, like the Heidelberg strain of salmonella, can also be contracted by humans and treating it with the usual drugs doesn’t work.

Morris said he can see where the OMA is coming from, but banning the use of disease-preventing antibiotics in animal feed goes right to the heart of how large-scale farms work.

“One thing leads to another,” he said. “If you remove one tool of production you affect everything else with regards to how those animals are produced.”

Large livestock farms are more cost-efficient, which makes for cheaper meat, he said, but raising large number of veal, chicken or pigs, for example, will involve preventing disease outbreaks with antibiotic feed because the animals are raised in close quarters. (Beef farming uses more open space and so antibiotic use is typically lower, Morris said.)

Ultimately, consumers have to decide what they are willing to pay for, he said, adding that there is already considerable oversight in how antibiotic feed is used. “It’s not as though farmers are putting this stuff in willy-nilly.”

Harold Wagner, who raises a small numbers of pigs and cattle without antibiotics in Lakeshore, said that instead of banning antibiotic feed altogether, it might be more practical to work with farmers to see whether shortening the length of time animals take antibiotics is as effective.

“There’s a difference between keeping (the animals) healthy and making them more feed-efficient,” Wagner said, referring to how antibiotics are used to help animals grow and put on weight faster, thereby costing the farmer less in terms of feed.

“I can see it,” he said of the OMA’s position, “But be prepared to pay more for food.”

Ontario doctors have recommended a ban on the use of antibiotics in livestock feed as a way of reducing the rate of antibiotic-resistant diseases in humans. Harold Wagner said it’s not a bad idea but that it would make meat more expensive. One of his cows is pictured Wed. March 20, 2013, at his Lakeshore, Ont. farm. (DAN JANISSE/The Windsor Star)

Antibiotic resistance occurs when a bacterial infection, such as a particular strain of pneumonia, multiplies and mutates over time, and combined with repeated exposure to an antibiotic, builds up resistance to it.

Along with recommending the ban of growth-promoting antibiotic use in animal husbandry, the OMA report made nine other recommendations, including developing a province-wide mechanism to track antibiotic resistance in animals and humans and making sure that imported animal antibiotics are tracked for their effects.

When it comes to human use, the OMA recommendations include developing guidelines for “optimal” use of antibiotics and to encourage doctors and patients to be more prudent about prescribing and taking these medicines.

Mark Balkwill, a local dairy farmer and chair of the Essex County Agricultural Federation, said putting regulations into place in Ontario still would not do anything to address the problems posed by imported foods produced in countries where antibiotic guidelines can be very different.

Food imports to Canada are at their highest levels ever, Balkwill said, and people in Windsor-Essex regularly shop across the border in the U.S. Educating consumers in Canada about how imported food is produced could also help tackle the bigger problem.

“It’s not just a Canadian issue,” Balkwill said of livestock and dairy farming’s effects on drug-resistant diseases. “It’s a world issue.”

bfantoni@windsorstar.com or Twitter.com/bfantoni

Ontario doctors have recommended a ban on the use of antibiotics in livestock feed as a way of reducing the rate of antibiotic-resistant diseases in humans. Harold Wagner said it’s not a bad idea but that it would make meat more expensive. He is pictured Wed. March 20, 2013, at his Lakeshore, Ont. farm with some of his cows. (DAN JANISSE/The Windsor Star)

Ontario doctors have recommended a ban on the use of antibiotics in livestock feed as a way of reducing the rate of antibiotic-resistant diseases in humans. Harold Wagner said it’s not a bad idea but that it would make meat more expensive. He is pictured Wed. March 20, 2013, at his Lakeshore, Ont. farm with some of his cows. (DAN JANISSE/The Windsor Star)

Ontario doctors have recommended a ban on the use of antibiotics in livestock feed as a way of reducing the rate of antibiotic-resistant diseases in humans. Harold Wagner said it’s not a bad idea but that it would make meat more expensive. He is pictured Wed. March 20, 2013, at his Lakeshore, Ont. farm with some of his cows. (DAN JANISSE/The Windsor Star)

Ontario doctors have recommended a ban on the use of antibiotics in livestock feed as a way of reducing the rate of antibiotic-resistant diseases in humans. Harold Wagner said it’s not a bad idea but that it would make meat more expensive. He is pictured Wed. March 20, 2013, at his Lakeshore, Ont. farm with some of his cows. (DAN JANISSE/The Windsor Star)

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